Read my Bookcase
This page is dedicated to the many books that I’ve more often than not borrowed from the local libraries to occupy my lonely cold nights, long bus journeys to work and the occasional Starbucks dates.
I love to read fiction most of the time but I’ll be indulging in some non-fictions soon enough to allow my brain to work before school starts. The books that I’ve rated in this page are just my personal judgments and it is really up to your discretion to judge the book yourself. At the end of the day, I’m just sharing :)
1. Should I Stay or Should I Go by Jessica Adams
Rate: ☻☻☻
2. Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom
Summary: The writer was tasked to write a eulogy for his Reb whom he avoided for a very long time. Although he grew up in a religious environment, his lifestyle and thoughts changed when he went away to work and married a woman who was from a different faith. It is heartwarming to read how the author finds his way back to the ‘light’ by getting to know the Reb on a personal level and discovering God’s grace in this world.
Rate: ☻☻☻☻☻
Favourite Quotes:
a. Many great minds have set out to disprove God’s existence. Sometimes they retreat to the opposite view. C.S. Lewis, who wrote so eloquently of faith, initially wrestled with the very concept of God an called himself “the most dejected an reluctant convert in all of England.” Louis Pasteur, the great scientist, tried to disprove a divine existence through facts and research; in the end, the gran design of man convinced him otherwise.
b. But so many people wage wars in God’s name.
“Mitch,” the Reb said, “God does not want such killing to go on.”
Then why hasn’t it stopped?
He lifted his eyebrows.
“Because man does.”
c. What do you do when death’s natural pecking order puts you in front of the line, when you no longer can hide behind “It’s not my turn”?
d. “You see?” he whispered. “This is man’s dilemma. We rail against it.”
Getting old?
“Getting old, we can deal with. Being old is the problem.”
e. “I think people expect too much from marriage today,” he said. “They expect perfection. Every moment should be bliss. That’s TV or movies. But that is not the human experience.”
“Like Sarah says, twenty good minutes here, forty good minutes there, it adds up to something beautiful. The trick is when things aren’t so great, you don’t junk the whole thing. It’s okay to have an argument. It’s okay that the other one nudges you a little, bothers you a little. It’s part of being close to someone.”
“But the joy you get from the same closeness-when you watch your children, when you wake up and smile at each other-that, as our tradition teaches us, is a blessing. People forget that.”
f. “Because the word ‘commitment’ has lost its meaning. I’m old enough to remember when it used to be a positive. A committed person was someone to be admired. He was loyal and steady. Now a commitment is something you avoid. You don’t want to tie yourself down.”
“It’s the same with faith, by the way. We don’t want to get stuck having to go to services all the time, or having to follow all the rules. We don’t want to commit to God. We’ll take Him when we need Him, or when things are going good. But real commitment? That requires staying power-in faith and in marriage.”
g. “Even in our own faith, we have questions and answers, interpretations, debates. In Christianity, in Catholicism, in other faiths, the same thing-debates, interpretations. That is the beauty. It’s like being a musician. If you found the note, and you kept hitting that note all the time, you would go nuts. It’s the blending of the different notes that makes the music.”
The music of what?
“Of believing in something bigger than yourself.”
h. Because there, inside the file, were hundreds of articles, clippings, and notes for sermons, all about God, with arrows and questions and scribbling in the Reb’s handwriting. And it hit me, finally, that this was the whole point of my time with the Reb and Henry: not the conclusion, but the search, the study, the journey to belief. You can’t fit the Lord in a box. But can gather stories, tradition, wisdom, and in time, you needn’t lower the shelf; God is already nearer to thee.
Have you ever known a man of faith? Did you run the other way? If so, stop running. Maybe sit for a minute. For a glass of ice water. For a plate of corn bread.You may find there is something beautiful to learn, and it doesn’t bite you and it doesn’t weaken you, it only proves a divine spark lies inside each of us, and that spark may one day save the world.
i. What if you only get five minutes with God?
“First I would say, “Do me a favour, God in Heaven, if you can, members of my family who need help, please show them the way on earth. Guide them a little.’”
Okay, that’s a minute.
“The next three minutes, I’d say, ‘Lord, give these to someone who is suffering and requires your love and counsel.”
You’d give up three minutes?
“If someone truly needs it, yes.”
3. Connections by Sheila O’Flanagan
Summary: Multiple short stories in a book where the plot takes place in a luxurious Carribean Island resort called ‘White Sands Resort”. It’s interesting to read how the minds of each character when they interact with one another and you will realise that sometimes, you can never expect to know the truth about another person.
Rate: ☻☻☻
4. The Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton
Summary: A good read for aspiring Architecture students. Insights to the study of Architecture which debunks most if not, entirely, everything that we thought was associated with Architecture and Architects.
Rate: ☻☻☻☻
5. Ideas that Shaped Buildings by Fil Hearn
Summary: A very technical book for aspiring architects. Based on theories of famous architects who have changed Architecture in so many ways since Marcus Vitruvius Pollio’s times (which was when Caesar was still alive!)
Rate: ☻☻☻☻☻ (5 Smileys for giving me all that I needed to know)
6. Wish You Were Here by Mike Gayle
Summary: A story of a bloke who had broke up with his live-in girlfriend of 10 years and how a holiday to Crete with two of his best buddies changed everything. Will he meet a new girl or would someone or something unexpected happen that will make this holiday a life-changing one? Worth a read for those heartbroken and ready to move on :)
Rate:☻☻☻
